Royalty is pitched against celebrity. The question upper most on the lips of every resident of this beautiful hill town of Mandi in Himachal Pradesh is who will emerge the winner. Will Bollywood celeb Kangana Ranaut — who right through this campaign has projected herself as “Mandi’s daughter”, coming from the small village of Bhamla — be able to pull the rug out from under the feet of Vikramaditya Singh, scion of the erstwhile Rampur family and son of six-time chief minister Virbadhra Singh.

Both candidates are filthy rich and have assets running into crores. That has not stopped Ranaut from calling Singh a “bigda hua shehzada” (spoilt prince) and chhota pappu, the other Pappu is a derogative reference made to Rahul Gandhi who is referred to derogatorily as shehzada.

Singh retorts by calling her a “political tourist” who has taken a month- long sabbatical from Bollywood and will pack her bags and return to Bollywood on June 4. Not one to be cowed down, Ranaut does not hesitate to state that if she is offered a meaty role, she would take it but if she was offered a ministership, she would concentrate on her ministry and would perforce steer clear of Bollywood.

Ranaut’s reference is very clear. If Smriti Irani could be offered a key ministry after she fought her first Lok Sabha election from Amethi in 2014 then why not her? After like Irani, if she defeats Singh, she too would emerge as a giant killer.

Ranaut carries with her a great deal of baggage. Not one to shy away from controversies, she has not hesitated to hit out at some of the established icons of Bollywood. Nor does she hesitate to make short shrift of history and believes the Azad Hind Fauj leader Subhash Chandra Bose was the first prime minister of India and not Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and that the azaadi gained in 1947 was the “bheek........

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